Books Received will be posted here monthly. All books are potentially available for online review, at the discretion of the Book Review Editor. Please consult the Reviewer Qualifications and Guidelines below, and contact the Book Review Editor, Charles McNelis (cam72@georgetown.edu), if you are interested in reviewing a book for CJ Online. Include preferred mailing address.
Because of space constraints, not all reviews will appear in the traditional hard-copy portion of the journal. Reviews solicited by the journal will generally appear in print as well as in CJ Online. Unsolicited reviews (i.e. volunteer reviews) will appear in CJ Online, but may also appear in print, at the editor's discretion and provided sufficient space is available. The journal regards print and online reviews as having equal academic and professional weight, and encourages tenure and merit committees and the like to take a similarly expansive view of the significance of electronic publication.
Books available for CJ Online Forum review are listed separately in the Books Received lists below. Interested reviewers should first consult the Forum’s Reviewer Qualifications and Guidelines, before contacting the Forum Editor, Emily West (EBWest@stkate.edu). Include preferred mailing address.
If you are interested in reviewing a book listed above in Books Received for CJ Online, please write the CJ Book Review Editor, Charles McNelis, at cam72@georgetown.edu, briefly explaining your qualifications to review the book and any possible disqualifying factors. Because more than one individual may be interested in a given book, even qualified reviewers cannot be guaranteed the books they request.
Reviewer Qualifications: For most books, reviewers should hold a PhD in Classics or a cognate field. It is CJ policy that graduate students should not review books, if only for their own protection. For textbooks, a PhD is not required, but the reviewer should have practical experience teaching the subject in question at the relevant level.
Conflicts of Interest: Potential reviewers should not request books in regard to which they might be seen as having a conflict of interest. Disqualifying conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to): a close personal friendship or relationship of some other sort with the author; being in the same department as the author; having had the author as a graduate student advisor, or having served on the author’s dissertation committee; having worked closely with the author as an instructor or supervisor in graduate school; having read and commented on the manuscript or substantial portions of it before it was submitted to the press; and having read and approved the manuscript for the press for publication.
Word limit: In the interest of readability, reviews should be a maximum of 1500 words. If you believe that this is inadequate to deal with the book you have received, please contact the CJ Book Review Editor in advance to request an exception to the policy.
Although all reviews should contain some summary of what is said in the book, we are not looking for a simple precis of the contents. Instead, reviewers are asked to engage with and evaluate the argument put forward in the book. Disagreements and criticism should be directed at the argument rather than the author; ad hominem attacks will not be published. CJ does not publish responses, but will publish corrections at a reviewer’s request.
Reviews should be submitted within 3 months of receipt of the book. All reviews will be edited for style and content; your review will come back to you in most cases within two weeks of submission, with editorial suggestions and requests of various sorts.
All reviews should be in English. Reviewers whose native language is not English should have the review read and carefully edited by a native speaker before submission.
